TGS 09: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Hands-on

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Is it too early to have a frontrunner for PSP game of 2010?

By Greg Miller

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker might be better than sex. Seriously, I know that a lot of us IGN editors catch flack for hyping a game too much, but I just played four missions of the game, watched a bunch of cutscenes, and can't wipe the grin off of my face.

Peace Walker picks up the story of Big Boss (or Naked Snake as he's often known) after the events of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops but before the events of the original Metal Gear. The war hero is living in Costa Rica and running a private military group -- muscle for hire, if you will. Kicking off from what appears to be the beginning of the game, Snake's on a motorcycle watching his troops -- members of Militaires Sans Frontieres or "military without borders" -- practice on the beach. When he can't light his cigar in the downpour he's chilling in, he heads down to the beach, rips off his shirt, and the men step up to challenge him.

This starts off the game's tutorial, which is framed as if Snake giving his men a demonstration on how to be Mr. Kickass. Now, whereas most Metal Gear tutorials have become a bit of old hat for seasoned vets like myself, this one's going to be essential. See, one of the biggest changes about Peace Walker compared to Portable Ops is the fact that the old PSP controls are out the window.

In the default scheme, the face buttons control the camera while the D-pad does stuff such as crouch, change your weapon, and choose your equipment. The right shoulder acts as your over the shoulder aim. Hold it down and Big Boss draws his weapon; keep it held down and tap the Left shoulder to fire the gun. When you're aiming, up on the D-pad reloads your gun.

As I learned to get the hang of Snake's new moves, I was delighted to see a number of changes and improvements. When you're up close with an enemy, you've got a few close-quarter combat moves at your disposal. The right shoulder button is now your action button. When you just tap it, Snake's going to do his punches and kicks; holding it will grab an enemy in the choke hold we know and love; and the right shoulder button with a direction will toss an enemy in that judo throw we've seen before.

Some of that might have seemed like old news, but you can now toss those grabbed enemies into other bad guys. This will become key to chaining together CQC moves. In the demo I got to play -- and you can too by downloading it from IGN and putting it on your PSP -- three of Snake's men surrounded him. I tossed one into another dude, the screen popped up with the R-button prompt, I took out the third with that move, and then double backed for the stragglers. To chain this stuff together, you just need to tap the right shoulder as it pops on screen.

With the tutorial polished off, a car rolls up on the beach and we're treated to those sketched-looking, moving cutscenes everyone digs. Big Boss' partner in this whole Militaires Sans Frontieres thing is Kazuhira Miller -- Master Miller from the original Metal Gear Solid. Seems a Costa Rican professor and a young girl are at the MSF HQ and looking for an army. A mysterious force of troops popped up in Costa Rica about a year ago, and the military-less country is pretty much getting run over out there.

Threeway calling confirmed.

The professor -- Galvez -- reminds Snake that Latin America is more important than ever in the grand scheme of the world since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that these people need to be stopped. Miller's down because it means money, but Snake's still a solider at heart and doesn't want to be a straight-up mercenary. Finally the girl, Paz, speaks up and begins to talk about being captured by these men and tortured.

Cutscenes in Peace Walker are going to have a bit of interactivity spliced into them. Here, as the girl tells her story, you can move the camera in to peer through her rain slicker and clothes so that you can see Paz in just her bra and panties; this way, the scars covering her body are clearly visible. All of this is dynamic; if you don't move the camera in, you don't see her proof.

When Snake begins to waver on his position, the "professor" calls him Big Boss, which is a name he shouldn't know because he's not military, and the cutscene ends. From there, it was on to four missions, so it looks like Snake and company ended up taking the job.